Yet now they fright me.

There is one within,

Befides the things that we have heard and feen,
Recounts moft horrid fights feen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and fquadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol
The noife of battle hurtled in the air ";

,

Horfes did neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghofts did fhriek, and fqueal about the streets:
O Cæfar! thefe things are beyond all ufe,
And I do fear them.

Caf. What can be avoided,

Whofe end is purpos'd by the mighty gods?
Yet Cæfar fhall go forth: for thefe predictions
Are to the world in general, as to Cæfar.

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of

princes.

Caf. Cowards die many times before their deaths7; The valiant never tafte of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

The noise of battle hurtled in the air.] See Vol. III. p. 386.

STEEVENS.

It

7 Cowards die many times before their deaths.] So in Marlton's Infatiate Countess, 1603:

Fear is my vaffal; when I frown, he flies,

"A hundred times in life a coward dies."

The first known edition of Julius Cæfar is that of 1623:

Lord Effex, probably before any of thefe writers, made the fame remark. In a letter to lord Rutland, he obferves, "that as he which dieth nobly, doth live for ever, fo be that doth live in fear, doth die continually." MALONE.

When fome of his friends did counsel him to have a guard for the fafety of his perfon; he would never confent to it, but faid, it was better to die once, than always to be affrayed of death." Sir Th. North's Tranfl. of Plutarch. STEEVENS.

-that I yet have heard.] This fentiment appears to have

been

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a neceffary end,
Will come, when it will come.

Re-enter a Servant.

What fay the augurers?

Serv. They would not have you to ftir forth to-day., Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beaft.
Caf. The gods do this in fhame of cowardice:
Cæfar fhould be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Cæfar fhall not: Danger knows full well,
That Cæfar is more dangerous than he.

* We are two lions, litter'd in one day,

been imitated by Dr. Young in his tragedy of Bufiris King of Egypt:

Didst thou e'er fear?

"Sure 'tis an art; I know not how to fear:
* 'Tis one of the few things beyond my power;
"And if death must be fear'd before 'tis felt,

Thy mafter is immortal."

STEEVENS.

-death, a neceffary end, &c.] This is a fentence derived

from the ftoical doctrine of predestination, and is therefore im

proper in the mouth of Cæfar. JOHNSON.

in fhame of cowardice:] The ancients did not place courage but wisdom in the heart. JOHNSON.

2 We were, &c.] In old editions:

We heard two lions.

-We heare

-The firft folio:

The copies have been all corrupt, and the paffage, of course, unintelligible. But the flight alteration, I have made, reftores fenfe to the whole; and the fentiment will neither be unworthy of Shakspeare, nor the boast too extravagant for Cæfar in a vein of vanity to utter that he and Danger were two twin-whelps of a lion, and he the elder, and more terrible of the two.

Upton would read:

We are

This resembles the boast of Otho :

THEOBALD.

Experti invicem fumus, Ego et Fortuna. Tacitus.

STEEVENS.

And

And I the elder and more terrible;

3 And Cæfar fhall go forth.

Cal. Alas, my lord,

Your wisdom is confum'd in confidence.

Do not go forth to-day: Call it my fear,

That keeps you in the house, and not your own.
We'll send Mark Antony to the fenate-house;
And he fhall fay, you are not well to-day :
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.

Caf. Mark Antony fhall fay, I am not well:
And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.

Enter Decius.

Here's Decius Brutus, he fhall tell them fo.
Dec. Cæfar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy
Cæfar:

I come to fetch you to the fenate-house.

Caf. And you are come in very happy time,
To bear my greeting to the fenators,

And tell them, that I will not come to-day:
Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falfer;
I will not come to-day: Tell them fo, Decius.
Cal. Say, he is fick.

3

-Cafar fhall go forth.-] Any fpeech of Cæfar throughout this fcene will appear to disadvantage, if compared with the following fentiments, put into his mouth by May, in the seventh book of his Supplement to Lucan:

-Plus me, Calphurnia, luctus

Et lachrymæ movere tuæ, quam triftia vatum
Refponfa, infauftæ volucres, aut ulla dierum
Vana fuperftitio poterant. Oftenta timere
Si nunc inciperem, quæ non mihi tempora pofthac
Anxia tranfirent? quæ lux jucunda maneret?
Aut quæ libertas fruftra fervire timori
(Dum nec luce frui, nec mortem arcere licebit)
Cogar, et huic capiti quod Romæ veretur, arufpex
Jus dabit, et vanus femper dominabitur augur.

STEEVENS.

Caf.

Caf. Shall Cæfar fend a lye?

Have I in conqueft ftretch'd mine arm fo far,
To be afeard to tell grey-beards the truth?
Decius, go tell them, Cæfar will not come.

Dec. Moft mighty Cæfar, let me know fome cause, Left I be laugh'd at, when I tell them fo.

Caf. The caufe is in my will, I will not come; That is enough to fatisfy the fenate.

But, for your private fatisfaction,

Because I love you, I will let you know.
Calphurnia here, my wife, ftays me at home:
She dreamt to-night fhe faw my statue,
Which, like a fountain, with a hundred fpouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lufty Romans
Came fmiling, and did bathe their hands in it..
And these does fhe apply for warnings, and portents,
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg'd, that I will ftay at home to-day.

Dec. This dream is all amifs interpreted;

It was a vifion, fair and fortunate:

Your ftatue spouting blood in many pipes,"
In which so many smiling Romans bath'd,
Signifies, that from you great Rome fhall fuck

4 She dreamt to-night she saw my ftatue,] The defect of the metre in this line, and a redundant fyllable in another a little lower, fhow that this paffage, like many others, has fuffered by the careleffnefs of the tranfcriber. It ought, perhaps, to be regulated thus:

She dreamt to-night the faw my ftatue, which,
Like a fountain with a hundred fpouts, did run
Pure blood; and many lufty Romans came
Smiling, and did bathe their hands in't: and these
Does the apply for warnings and portents

Of evils imminent.

MALONE.

5 And thefe fhe does apply for warnings, and portents,

And evils imminent.]

The late Mr. Edwards was of opinion that we should read:

warnings and portents

Of evils imminent.

STEEVENS.

Reviving

6

Reviving blood; and that great men fhall prefs For tinctures, ftains, relicks, and cognifance. This by Calphurnia's dream is fignify'd.

Cef. And this way have you well expounded it. Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can fay: And know it now; The fenate have concluded To give, this day, a crown to mighty Cæfar. If you fhall fend them word, you will not come,

16

-and that great men fhall prefs

For tinctures, ftains, relicks, and cognizance.]

That this dream of the ftatue's spouting blood should fignify, the increase of power and empire to Rome from the influence of Cafar's arts and arms, and wealth and honour to the noble Romans through his beneficence, expreffed by the words, from you great Rome ball fuck reviving blood, is intelligible enough. But how thefe great men fhould literally prefs for tindures, ftains, relicks, and cognizance, when the fpouting blood was only a fymbolical vifion, I am at a lofs to apprehend. Here the circumstances of the dream, and the interpretation of it, are confounded with one another. This line therefore,

For tinctures, flains, relicks, and cognizance, muft needs be in way of fimilitude only; and if fo, it appears that fome lines are wanting between this and the preceding; which want fhould, for the future, be marked with afterifks. The fenfe of them is not difficult to recover, and, with it, the propriety of the line in queftion. The speaker had faid, the ftatue fignified, that by Cæfar's influence Rome fhould flourish and increase in empire, and that great men fhould prefs to him to partake of his good fortune, juft as men run with handkerchiefs, &c. to dip them in the blood of martyrs, that they may partake of their merit. It is true, the thought is from the Chriftian history; but fo fmall an anachronifm is nothing with our poet. Befides, it is not my interpretation which introduces it, it was there before: for the line in queftion can bear no other fenfe than as an allufion to the blood of the martyrs, and the fuperftition of fome churches with regard to it. WARBURTON.

I am not of opinion that any thing is loft, and have therefore marked no omiflion. This fpeech, which is intentionally pompous, is fomewhat confufed. There are two allufions; one to coats armorial, to which princes make additions, or give new tinctures, and new marks of cognizance; the other to martyrs, whofe reliques are preferved with veneration. The Romans, fays Decius, all come to you as to a faint, for reliques, as to a prince, for honours. JOHNSON. E 2

Their